Not a good day for Donald Trump or Rex Tillerson, his choice for Secretary of State.

The entire senior staff of the State Department just resigned.

The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.

...“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” said David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry. “Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.”

Will there be a similar exodus at DOJ when Jeff Sessions takes over?

Update: The Washington Post has two reporters working on the story. The first reported as above. The second, a few hours later, writes that Team Trump requested the resignations of several "senior State Department diplomats."

Donald Trump's plans are already generating fear and loathing, resulting in violence.

In Pittsburgh, PA, a Mexican college student who is legally in the U.S. listened to Trump on TV (while drinking beer) and got in an argument with his roommate, biting off his ear and breaking his finger. It seems the assaultive roommate feared being deported. Luckily, the assaulted roommate made his way to a gas station to call police. His ear was recovered in the room and stitched back on. The assaulting roommate is gone. Both come form Mexico.

To paraphrase Trump's probable response: "What did you expect? People are angy."

President Obama gives his final press conference.

Most of the West Wing staff is will move out tomorrow.

Obama's approval ratings are now very high. The UnPresident Elect's are the lowest of an incoming President in 4 decades.

The Obamas will attend the swearing in ceremony and leave on vacation before settling into a new home in D.C.

President Obama and his family have picked a house to rent in D.C. after he leaves the White House. (They aren't going back to Chicago right away because daughter Sasha is still in high school.)

Check out the stunning photos of the home, which has more than 8,000 square feet (9 bedrooms.) The house belongs to former Clinton press spokesman Joe Lockhart who is now living in New York.

President Obama is in Vietnam. He visited Ho Chi Minh's house. And he ended the arms embargo so weapons can now be sold to Vietnam.

What a pleasure to read Vietnam newspapers -- the ones I've seen don't have autoplay video. Here are some photos of the welcoming ceremony.

I'm sorry I haven't visited Vietnam. Here are ten reasons you really should go.

Malia Obama will be going to Harvard in 2017. She graduates this June and will be taking a year off before college, which Harvard encourages students to do.

Harvard encourages admitted students to defer for one year to travel, pursue a special project or activity, work, or spend time in another meaningful way. The student must not enroll in a program at another college that would grant that student a degree.

I wish that policy existed when I was graduating from high school. Or from college. I don't think it would have made much of a difference in the long run if I became a lawyer at 25 instead of 24. And having a year off to travel or volunteer would have been fun.

Malia wants to be a filmmaker. The Obamas have been good at keeping their daughters out of the limelight. I don't recall reading about either of these intern/apprenticeships she served: [More...]

President Obama and his family have landed in Cuba for a very historic visit. Who would not want to go to Cuba? I sure would.

What an achievement for his presidency. He is the first president to visit Cuba in 90 years. [More...]

I just tuned into the State of the Union. How's Obama doing? Does he have anything new to say?

President Obama outlined his 10 point execution action plan for gun control today.

Among the changes:

Anyone who makes a living from selling guns online or at gun shows, two locations where sellers are often considered collectors or hobbyists and freed from the requirement that they conduct background checks, will be required to be federally licensed.

He is also asking for $500 million for mental health treatment. In a statement, he acknowledged these measures will not stop every violent crime or prevent every mass shooting. [More...]

Update: Best line of Obama's speech: "Freedom is More Powerful Than Fear."

Shorter version: No boots on the ground (with a moving definition of what constitutes boots -- boots now seems limited to hand to hand combat, not troops on ground.) "What we should not do" is allow ourselves to "be drawn into long and costly ground war in Syria and Iraq."

We can expect more kill missions (whatever happened to the capture part? It seems gone.) Asks Congress to pass authorization for use of force against ISIS. Just a few references to assault rifles. Asks Congress to pass a bill preventing those on the no-fly list from buying them. We can't stop every mass killer but we can make it harder for them to kill.

President Obama today announced the Administration will appeal the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision yesterday blocking the implementation of his executive order on Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program (“DAPA”). The opinion is here.

The Obama administration will ask the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court injunction that has held up a new program that potentially would shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. The decision to take the case to the high court comes a day after a federal appeals panel ruled against the administration, keeping the new program on hold nearly a year after President Obama announced it.

[More...]

President Obama finally got a personal Twitter Account. Here's his first tweet:

Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account.

As of now, he has 275,000 followers and is following 65 agencies and people.